Klezmer’s Virtuoso

Patience and perseverance: Andy Statman’s journey through Judaism and music.

Last year, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) awarded a National Heritage Fellowship to Andy Statman. That’s a big deal. The Fellowship is the NEA’s top honor. It was created to recognize the recipient’s artistic excellence and to support his continuing contributions to America’s traditional arts heritage.

Nice.

And past recipients are a who’s-who of iconic American artists like B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Earl Scruggs, Bill Monroe, and on and on.

You don’t become an iconic American artist overnight.

But you don’t become an iconic American artist overnight. It takes time and practice and patience and perseverance.

And Andy Statman is all about time and practice and patience and perseverance. It’s obvious. Listen to his music. Look at his career. Look at his life. And ask him about Judaism.

Andy’s earliest musical memories are his family’s collection of 78s; an old-school mashup of show tunes, classical music, popular songs, and Jewish music (what would today be called klezmer). Shortwave radio and an encounter with WWVA out of West Virginia – Andy lived in Queens – turned him on to country music and bluegrass, inspiring him to take up an instrument. (His older brother played in a jug band, brought home bluegrass records, and was a big influence as well.) He started on guitar, switched to banjo, and by age 15 was seriously studying mandolin.

He soon started studying with David Grisman – then a young virtuoso and today recognized as one of America’s greats – and Grisman knew how to make Andy work. He made Andy transcribe hundreds of songs and solos. He listened to his playing, answered his questions, gave him pointers, offered advice, and gave him more music to transcribe and learn. Andy was ready to work, made steady progress, and started gigging around New York.

But the deepest emotions in bluegrass are conveyed through singing. And Andy wasn’t a singer. So his mind was wide open to new sounds when he heard (saxophonist) Albert Ayler on the radio. Ayler was the vanguard of late-sixties free jazz – about as out there as you could get – and his music expressed an intense primal passion and raw emotional power.

Andy was hooked and took up the saxophone. He had already mastered the hard part of music – ears, time, listening, internal hearing – so he wasn’t a beginner. But switching to a wind instrument forced him to think differently. He couldn’t rely on muscle memory; the stock positions, fingerings, and phraseology he was used to. It was a new experience.

That meant more work, learning, and intense hours in the woodshed. Daunting? Not at all. He went right to it.

Klezmer Revolution

Andy took a stab at college but was soon back in New York getting reacquainted with the musicians he worked with in high school. It wasn’t long before he ran into David Bromberg. Bromberg had just scored a major deal with Columbia Records and hired Andy to be in his band. He toured with Bromberg and played on sessions with the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Dr. John, Flaco Jimenez, and many others. After a few years he left Bromberg’s band to form Breakfast Special (an incredible, eclectic group - look them up).

But Andy kept learning and growing. In 1975 he was playing with Zev Feldman – another multi-instrumentalist – and they were studying music from places like Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Greece.

And that was cool, multicultural, and über hip, except that they were two Jewish guys. Wasn’t there music indigenous to the Jewish people as well?

Andy thought about the music he grew up with – the Jewish music on the old 78s his parents had around the house – that music was Jewish. And that music wasn’t getting played. It was considered dated, old, and no longer representative of a living community.

But that didn’t mean it wasn’t good. Andy remembered that it was incredible.

The Jewish music Andy’s parents listened to – called klezmer today – represents an older stream of Hassidic music and is the instrumental counterpart to Hassidic vocal music. It produces a feeling, invoked by phrasing and ornamentation, and is representative of a community in Eastern Europe living on either side of 1900. That community no longer exists and their music – at least as a vibrant and developing art form – had fizzled by 1920 or so.

But it was still great music. And for a Jewish musician living in the 1970s it was very relevant.

And so for Andy – a voracious student of traditional music – here was an opportunity to discover his own traditional music. He didn’t need to do it for a living – he was already working and in-demand – but it was a fascinating study for his growth and self-exploration.

Enter Dave Tarras. At one time Dave Tarras was the leading progenitor of Jewish music. Today he was old and living in New York in relative obscurity. Andy transcribed Dave’s music, learned how to play it, found Dave’s phone number in the musician’s union directory, and called him up.

Dave was amazed. He couldn’t believe a young musician was interested in him or his music. He thought it was finished. Andy visited Dave after a gig in Nashville. It turned out they lived ten minutes from each other and Andy became his disciple. He started playing clarinet and was now on his way to mastering klezmer, the music of early twentieth century Eastern European Jews. (Dave Tarras – with Andy’s help – made a comeback in the 1980s and was awarded an NEA National Heritage Fellowship in 1984.)

But meeting Dave Tarras and studying klezmer music wasn’t Andy’s first exposure to Judaism or Jewish culture.

Andy grew up in the Jackson Heights section of Queens. In those days Jackson Heights was a wonderfully diverse neighborhood that was one-third Jewish, Irish, and Italian. His family was your typical Jewish American family. They were Jewish, not very religious, but traditional in a 1950s-American kind of way. They had Chanukah parties and Passover Seders and a loose connection to the old world. Andy attended a local Talmud Torah – after school Jewish lessons – and although he loved the Rabbi (everyone did) for him it was still just more school, after school. And Andy wasn’t made for school. So that didn’t last and he left the Talmud Torah. For his Bar Mitzvah he memorized his Torah portion from a tape and read it in a local synagogue.

You’re a Jew

But Andy kept tabs on the Jewish world. He wasn’t opposed to it, he just didn’t know much about it. His sax teacher – Richard Grando – often talked to him about God and religion. He encouraged him to think and introduced him to Carl Jung’s concept of acausal synchronicity.

It was as if the universe was yelling, “You’re a Jew.”

The way Andy understood Jung’s synchronicity, the fact that he was Jewish wasn’t just some sort of cosmic accident. He could have been born anywhere as anything. He was born Jewish and that was who he was. His personal history was the result of everything that preceded him. It was as if the universe was yelling, “You’re a Jew.”

Might as well learn about it.

In the late sixties and early seventies he attended services at a few synagogues. But he wasn't inspired. He talked with his family’s rabbi – from the old Talmud Torah – and he convinced him to spend a full Shabbos in Crown Heights with the Lubavitch Hassidim.

And that was a lot more like it. He went back the next week and bought a pair of tefilin. He also talked with his grandfather about the family and his Jewish roots.

But Andy wasn’t one to just jump into things. When he did something he did it right, and that meant he studied, learned, and made changes slowly and pragmatically. Over the next ten years he started studying with a rabbi, stopped eating non-kosher food, stopped watching TV on Shabbos, and slowly immersed himself in the Jewish world.

He looked at it like immigrating to a new country. The externals of a Jewish lifestyle are nice, but immersion in the system requires adapting to a completely alien culture. Orthodox Jews look different, think different, see things differently, approach things differently, and you can’t just adapt all that at once. It takes patience, study, discipline, and perseverance.

Sound familiar?

In 1980 Andy and Zev released Jewish Klezmer Music, an amazing collection of duets featuring Andy on clarinet and mandolin and Zev on the dulcimer tsimbl.

The album was huge.

Klezmer was indigenous Jewish music and they went at it with a vengeance.

Andy and Zev weren’t the only people interested in klezmer, and their album – along with a few others – opened a Pandora ’s box. After years of assimilation, America’s thirty-something, eighties-era Jews were self-confident in their Americanness and not afraid to explore their ethnic heritage. Klezmer was indigenous Jewish music and they went at it with a vengeance. Some groups were preservationist and recreated – to a T – the sounds from the old 78s. Others, like John Zorn and his radical Jewish culture, used klezmer as a Jewish starting point for adventures in jazz, punk, and the avant-garde. But regardless of approach, a klezmer revival was underway.

Not that Andy was interested in a revival. A revival implied the resurrection of a dead art. Klezmer wasn't dead, it was great music rooted in a deep spiritual language. It was the instrumental counterpart to the music of the Hassidim. The goal of the original musicians – back in Europe – was to rip your kishkas out, to bring you back to God. And maybe that explained why so many people – religious, secular, Jewish, or not – were drawn to it, even after the "revival" became more about Yiddish culture and less about the music per se.

Jewish Klezmer Music was a traditional album. Andy was careful to stick to the language created in the early nineteen hundreds. For him it was a cultural study and an opportunity to explore his roots. He didn’t expect it to go further than that. But the album took off and the music was challenging and fun to play. People wanted to listen to it (and it didn’t hurt that klezmer gigs paid better and offered better working conditions than playing bluegrass in bars).

Pushing the Boundaries

His next few albums broke from the traditional mold. Andy’s music, while still rooted in klezmer, pushed the traditional boundaries and embraced the free improvisatory elements of John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and others. His album, Between Heaven and Earth, used old Hassidic melodies as a springboard for this type of improvisation. It was his crowning achievement in this style and the New York Times hailed it as one of the top ten albums of 1997.

And Andy’s exploration of Jewish music loosely paralleled his growth as a Jew. By the mid-eighties he was no longer working on Shabbos. He was studying the Talmud, kept kosher, and moved to Flatbush. He looked, dressed, acted, and in every way was a Torah observant orthodox Jew.

In the late nineties he went back to bluegrass. Although he never stopped playing mandolin, he left the bluegrass scene when he got into Jewish music in the late seventies. After his explorations in jazz and Hassidic music, he turned his focus back to American roots music.

And many of the bluegrass musicians he worked with knew him for years, from long before he adapted the lifestyle and look of an orthodox Jew. What did they think of his transformation?

They loved it.

Andy’s integrity and slow, realistic embrace of Orthodox Judaism is a testament to his sincerity. It is obvious that his journey is real, personal, and rational. Like his music, Andy is the real deal.

Great musicians want to work with Andy. They are drawn to his soul. And his dedication to Judaism only makes it shine brighter.

What does Andy think about being an NEA National Heritage Fellow? “I took it all in stride until I got to DC and the Library of Congress and realized what a big deal it was,” Andy said. “I was up there with people I have know for years like Flaco Jiménez and Mike Auldridge. And I was added to a list that included people like B.B. King and John Lee Hooker. That was pretty heavy.”

Of course it was heavy. The NEA’s National Heritage Fellowship is a recognition of excellence. And excellence is a quality that transcends mere virtuosity.

Related Articles:

About the Author

Tzvi Gluckin lectures extensively on a wide range of Jewish related topics. He is the author of four books including: Everything You Want Is Really Jewish, Discover This, and Knee Deep in the Funk: Understanding the Connection Between Spirituality and Music. He served in the Israeli Army, holds a B.M. in Jazz Studies from the New England Conservatory of Music, and is currently the director of Vechulai, an innovative Jewish think tank in Boston. For more information, visit his website at gluckin.com/.

Visitor Comments: 7

Just listened to itzak pearl man and Andy. I will hunt down klezmer in Israel coming September. A must have.

(6)
Debra Markowitz,
July 23, 2013 4:32 PM

Mazel Tov!

Hey Andy!I seen ya wit BrombergI seen ya wit DylanI seen ya in New JoiseyPuttin on TefillinPuttin on Tefilin

I was so thrilled to find this article in my inbox! It is an honor that you truly deserve. We love you, D & D

(5)
Howie Subnick,
July 18, 2013 3:48 PM

Klezmer Will Never Go Away

Andy, a BIG THANK YOU, for bring klezmer back into my life. After leaving the East coast for the West coast I realized how much difference there was in music.. On the West coast there was no klezmer. When you mentioned it, people thought it was a disease. I searched Santa Monica Jewish neighborhoods and found very little. Yiddish music was a thing of the past...and now there is you! Thank you for playing like you do and play till your music touches the stars. God Bless You!

(4)
Rtuh Berkovits,
July 18, 2013 3:31 PM

Had heard Andy Statman in person

I had heard Andy Statman in person years ago. If I'm not mistaken he played in Town Hall in NYC every Thursday night. I loved listening to this talented person. Also, my son learned with his son in Bais Yisrael in Neve Yaakov in Israel..

Mazel tov on this great honor.

May Hashem grant you koach to continue playing and entertaining people.

(3)
ruth housman,
July 18, 2013 3:17 PM

Klezmer's Souls on Fire

I read this with interest as I love Klezmer as does my husband and we became acquainted with Daniel Kahn and his group, The Painted Bird by finding him and his music at Klezmer Kamp two years ago in the Laurentians. He is a true, soul on fire.

It feels like, the stories we tell, are scripted. I think all the luck that followed this man you have high lighted, is such. Look at the trajectory of his life leading to his amazing music!

It's grand he became Orthodox since this is a site that promotes Judaism and also observant lives. But I believe God is an equal oppor TUNE ity player, and that many who make music, whose lives are also filled with astounding miraculous stories, are also deeply part of the The Same Grand Story we all share, and that is, God wrote us all into the most amazing story EVER told, and it's so totally about Diversity, something Rabbi Jonathan S.writes about with great eloquence.

(2)
Berakah,
July 18, 2013 3:13 PM

WONDERFUL

I came across his music by accident some years back at a bookstore-His latest release Old Brooklyn is fabulous with the eclectic blend of very talented musicians. Thanks for the informative article on this most amazing man!!

I'm told that it's a mitzvah to become intoxicated on Purim. This puzzles me, because to my understanding, it is not considered a good thing to become intoxicated, period.

One of the characteristics of the at-risk youth is their use of drugs, including alcohol. In my experience, getting drunk doesn't reveal secrets. It makes people act stupid and irresponsible, doing things they would never do if they were sober. Also, I know a lot about the horrible health effects of abusing alcohol, because I work at a research center that focuses on addiction and substance abuse.

Also, I am an alcoholic, which means that if I drink, very bad things happen. I have not had a drink in 22 years, and I have no intention of starting now. Surely there must be instances where a person is excused from the obligation to drink. I don't see how Judaism could ever promote the idea of getting drunk. It just doesn't seem right.

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Putting aside for a moment all the spiritual and philosophical reasons for getting drunk on Purim, this remains an issue of common sense. Of course, teenagers should be warned of the dangers of acute alcohol ingestion. Of course, nobody should drink and drive. Of course, nobody should become so drunk to the point of negligence in performing mitzvot. And of course, a recovering alcoholic should not partake of alcohol on Purim.

Indeed, the Code of Jewish Law explicitly says that if one suspects the drinking may affect him negatively, then he should NOT drink.

Getting drunk on Purim is actually one of the most difficult mitzvot to do correctly. A person should only drink if it will lead to positive spiritual results - e.g. under the loosening affect of the alcohol, greater awareness will surface of the love for God and Torah found deep in the heart. (Perhaps if we were on a higher spiritual level, we wouldn't need to get drunk!)

Yet the Talmud still speaks of an obligation on Purim of "not knowing the difference between Blessed is Mordechai and Cursed is Haman." How then should a person who doesn't drink get the point of “not knowing”? Simple - just go to sleep! (Rama - OC 695:2)

All this applies to individuals. But the question remains - does drinking on Purim adversely affect the collective social health of the Jewish community?

The aversion to alcoholism is engrained into Jewish consciousness from a number of Biblical and Talmudic sources. There are the rebuking words of prophets - Isaiah 28:1, Hosea 3:1 with Rashi, and Amos 6:6, and the Zohar says that "The wicked stray after wine" (Midrash Ne'alam Parshat Vayera).

It is well known that the rate of alcoholism among Jews has historically been very low. Numerous medical, psychological and sociological studies have confirmed this. The connection between Judaism and sobriety is so evident, that the following conversation is reported by Lawrence Kelemen in "Permission to Receive":

When Dr. Mark Keller, editor of the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, commented that "practically all Jews do drink, and yet all the world knows that Jews hardly ever become alcoholics," his colleague, Dr. Howard Haggard, director of Yale's Laboratory of Applied Physiology, jokingly proposed converting alcoholics to the Jewish religion in order to immerse them in a culture with healthy attitudes toward drinking!

Perhaps we could suggest that it is precisely because of the use of alcohol in traditional ceremonies (Kiddush, Bris, Purim, etc.), that Jews experience such low rates of alcoholism. This ceremonial usage may actually act like an inoculation - i.e. injecting a safe amount that keeps the disease away.

Of course, as we said earlier, all this needs to be monitored with good common sense. Yet in my personal experience - having been in the company of Torah scholars who were totally drunk on Purim - they acted with extreme gentleness and joy. Amid the Jewish songs and beautiful words of Torah, every year the event is, for me, very special.

Adar 12 marks the dedication of Herod's renovations on the second Holy Temple in Jerusalem in 11 BCE. Herod was king of Judea in the first century BCE who constructed grand projects like the fortresses at Masada and Herodium, the city of Caesarea, and fortifications around the old city of Jerusalem. The most ambitious of Herod's projects was the re-building of the Temple, which was in disrepair after standing over 300 years. Herod's renovations included a huge man-made platform that remains today the largest man-made platform in the world. It took 10,000 men 10 years just to build the retaining walls around the Temple Mount; the Western Wall that we know today is part of that retaining wall. The Temple itself was a phenomenal site, covered in gold and marble. As the Talmud says, "He who has not seen Herod's building, has never in his life seen a truly grand building."

Some people gauge the value of themselves by what they own. But in reality, the entire concept of ownership of possessions is based on an illusion. When you obtain a material object, it does not become part of you. Ownership is merely your right to use specific objects whenever you wish.

How unfortunate is the person who has an ambition to cleave to something impossible to cleave to! Such a person will not obtain what he desires and will experience suffering.

Fortunate is the person whose ambition it is to acquire personal growth that is independent of external factors. Such a person will lead a happy and rewarding life.

With exercising patience you could have saved yourself 400 zuzim (Berachos 20a).

This Talmudic proverb arose from a case where someone was fined 400 zuzim because he acted in undue haste and insulted some one.

I was once pulling into a parking lot. Since I was a bit late for an important appointment, I was terribly annoyed that the lead car in the procession was creeping at a snail's pace. The driver immediately in front of me was showing his impatience by sounding his horn. In my aggravation, I wanted to join him, but I saw no real purpose in adding to the cacophony.

When the lead driver finally pulled into a parking space, I saw a wheelchair symbol on his rear license plate. He was handicapped and was obviously in need of the nearest parking space. I felt bad that I had harbored such hostile feelings about him, but was gratified that I had not sounded my horn, because then I would really have felt guilty for my lack of consideration.

This incident has helped me to delay my reactions to other frustrating situations until I have more time to evaluate all the circumstances. My motives do not stem from lofty principles, but from my desire to avoid having to feel guilt and remorse for having been foolish or inconsiderate.

Today I shall...

try to withhold impulsive reaction, bearing in mind that a hasty act performed without full knowledge of all the circumstances may cause me much distress.

With stories and insights,
Rabbi Twerski's new book Twerski on Machzor makes Rosh Hashanah prayers more meaningful. Click here to order...